How AI & ML Impacts Content Marketing & SEO
Discover how marketers can leverage artificial intelligence to boost SEO.
While 2020 will go down as peak global weirdness for obvious reasons, 2023 is poised to be another change-making year for digital marketers. It’s all down to one tiny but mighty acronym: AI. Carlos Meza, President & CEO, Crowd Content, talks about how AI & ML is changing the SEO and Content Marketing landscape.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has long been creeping across the digital landscape, predicting buyer behavior and analyzing social messaging to better inform marketers’ decisions. But with AI now producing content that seems surprisingly usable, are we finally at the precipice of the moment where human writers give way to blog-writing robots?
It’s easy to succumb to doom and gloom, but the fact is that people-first content will always win, and for content to be people-first indeed, it has to involve… well… people.
Here’s a look at how AI and machine learning (ML) impact content marketing and SEO performance and why you may find yourself leveraging both sooner than you think — just not how you expected.
See More: 3 SEO Trends Marketers Should Look Out for
Is AI the End of Content Marketing as We Know it?
AI is what we call a disruptor. It takes the processes we know and are comfortable with to shake it all up. That can be quite unpleasant for people that revel in the status quo, but it’s important to examine disruptors as analytically as possible. What can you take from this new approach, and what can be left behind?
AI as a Tool for “Real Writers”
Why does AI have to be all or nothing? Instead of canceling your accounts with your favorite freelancers and relying totally on technology that’s still wildly unpredictable, consider AI as a tool. Content generators can help human writers break through writer’s blocks by combing the internet for data and turning that information into impressively comprehensive content briefs. It’ll even come up with keywords to help your content rank (more on that in a moment).
Not sure about where to start with the article? AI will give you the most commonly covered topics, then you (or your writer) can expand using personal knowledge and your database of authoritative sources. The vital nod here is to the human review — AI can kick-start the process, but you still need a living, experienced person’s hands for the duration.
AI can also be used for shorter pieces of content, like tweets or social media lead-ins. It’s easier for readers to overlook tech-fueled content when it’s only a sentence or two long. Then you can populate your social accounts quickly and without overburdening your existing resources. Another possible use: chatbots. Around 7% of marketers are already using AI-powered chatbots to create answers to simple customer questions, and another 27% are considering it. But when questions get complex, you need <drum roll, please> a human to step in.
V is for Visual Content
Content is often assumed to be text-based, but the C-word is a compilation of information that can take various forms. That includes visual media. There are AI-powered generators that can produce graphics and video content, giving markets unprecedented power over the collateral they use to support their ideas.
In a recent meeting, someone from our tech team demonstrated the power of AI-generated graphics by putting in the prompt, “cow dancing in a field filled with flying hot dogs.” In about 90 seconds, we had a pop art masterpiece. A quick look at user-generated art submitted to AI galleries reveals stunning, museum-level work, but these pieces fall short in realism. Still, AI is evolving at a mind-boggling pace, and what looks like top-notch Last of Us graphics today could look like a photograph in the not-too-distant future.
ML and AI are Still Tapping into Customers’ Online Behavior
As mentioned above, ML and AI as customer behavior analysis tools have been around for some time, but it’s worth reminding ourselves to keep these uses in clear focus. AI can track data points and make recommendations on improving the customer journey far more accurately and faster than humans. Marketing runs on algorithms for a reason.
Use AI to understand your buyer personas better, and you can write more tailored content. Do that and watch conversion rates soar.
The Connection Between Quality Content, AI, and SEO
Machine learning is how artificial intelligence gets so smart. It’s a system built on continuous self-education — the tech trolls the internet, feeding itself information like a hangry diner in a buffet line. AI has a voracious appetite, which is great for marketers who want to appease Google’s algorithms but don’t have time to do all the required legwork.
First, How Does Google View AI?
When AI-generated content started picking up speed in early 2022, Google was dead set against allowing AI content to rank highly. Google has nothing against AI itself — the company proudly touts all kinds of AI tools and modern-machine learning for research and education purposes. The problem was that Google has long had a track record of penalizing websites that feature low-quality, spam-like content, and AI copy seemed destined to fall squarely into that not-so-impressive category.
See More: How to Sell SEO to the C-suite
But current AI output is decidedly un-spam like, and Google has clarified its stance by underscoring the company’s preference for content written for humans rather than for search engines.
Think about what the algorithm looks for when scoring and ranking content:
- Helpfulness: Is the content helpful? Does it answer the query typed into the search engine box by the consumer?
- Originality: Is the content providing something new or a twist on a well-known topic?
- Experience & Expertise: Does the author have first-hand experience with the topic and/or a track record of published articles related to the industry/niche?
If content ticks all the boxes, Google doesn’t really care if the words were typed out by a real live human being pecking away at a PC or produced by artificial intelligence. The focus is on the what, not the who.
How AI Fuels SEO
AI and SEO are a marriage made in digital marketer heaven. With artificial intelligence, you can:
- Generate content briefs that are competitive and full of relevant, rank-ready keywords.
- Predict SEO rankings way earlier than you’d say actual results, allowing you to tweak your processes and content to achieve better outcomes faster.
- Capture data from competitors and analyze why they might be ranking better than you are
- Use AI-powered SEO tactics to optimize old content, finding opportunities to improve everything from header and title tags to keywords and actual phrasing.
The bottom line is that there is much to be excited about regarding AI and ML. No one involved, content writers or marketers, should be panicking that they’re being replaced. Much like the grammar tools that came out in the late 2000s, AI is an implement that shows oodles of promise, but a human must wield that to reach its full potential. Companies that figure out how to balance that equation stand to come out miles ahead of the competition.
How are you leveraging AI to improve your SEO performance? Share with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn . We’d love to hear from you!
Image Source: Shutterstock
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